Asking your parents for anything took 24 hours of mental preparation and a fully thought-out proposal you presented to them like a lawyer appealing to a judge.

If you don't know what we're talking about, then consider yourself one of the lucky ones.

I was not allowed to use the money cheat on Sims growing up because that's not how the "real world" works, I used the cheat once and couldn't explain where all the money I had came from so I was grounded and had Sims taken away.

My parents were all over the place with strictness. When I was old enough to drive, my younger sister and I would drive to McDonald's, just a few miles away. My parents would admonish us "Whatever you do, do NOT eat french fries in the car!!!!". Invariably, we would get home, they would run out, open the car doors, sniff, and start screaming at us for eating french fries in the car. We never did.

My mom was absolutely obsessed with clean feet. Every day before school, she would make sure we got in the bath and cleaned our feet. I know most of you people are like, "Yeah well when I take a shower I'm already standing in soapy water, so good enough" but that attitude would get your face slapped off around my mom.

She'd have the bath full of scolding hot water every morning and the first thing would we do, before eating, before showering, before changing into our clothes, is dip our feet in that too hot water. Then my mom would load our feet up with this really strong smelling soap from some specialty store or something, because I've never seen it anywhere else, and she would scrub every square microinch of our feet with this stiff bristled big toothbrush thing. Maybe it was for cleaning horse teeth, I don't know.

It hurt so bad. The water was too hot, the soap stung, and the brushing was too intense. I never got used to it, but I couldn't talk back or avoid it either. If I tried to get out of it or complain about it, BLAM! Slapped across the face. Complain about the slap? BOOM! Grounded from TV, the computer, friends, and books.

It wasn't until I left for college did I experience what it was like to not thoroughly clean my feet every single morning. It felt liberating. I even walked around without socks sometimes (my mom always made us wear two pairs). I still had my feet scrubbed like hell when I came home to visit though. Only those times it felt good, as if they needed a good cleaning.

Even now when I see my mom, she wants to clean my feet. It's pretty great actually. Imagine going to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned, but it's for your feet instead.

Nobody in my house was allowed to get the mail except my dad. Doesn't matter what time he got home. Leave the mail in the mailbox. He would also personally open all the mail no matter the recipient. When he went on business trips my mom would be allowed to go get the mail, but it had to immediately be put on his desk in his office. He would always know if anyone touched it.

Update: holy shit this blew up. To answer a lot of the repetitive questions - he would travel all the time and he would go all around the world, I personally don't know why but I assume it's a control thing, and he still does this even though my brother and I have moved out

Update 2: There is not a cupboard under the stairs as far as I know and I don't believe anyone in my family is a wizard. Also I know it would not be a debt thing because my family by no means struggles financially.

Update 2.5: Alright you all seem to be enjoying this so I'll throw out another weird story. When I was 16 my family went on vacation to Paris. My whole family was gone for couple weeks so naturally we had to get somebody to watch our cats and most importantly GET THE MAIL AND SET IT ON THE DESK. Well we got a girl from the neighborhood to watch the house and she did. Upon arriving home there was a girls sweatshirt on our kitchen table. I didn't think anything of it because I was confident that it belonged to the girl watching the house (which it did for the record). After taking my bag to my room I hear my mom scream my full name. I run downstairs and she is holding the sweatshirt and asking "What the hell is this?" Obviously confused I just say probably the neighbor girls. Well my mom then goes on to make up some scenario in her head that I told my friends I was gone and that they had a party in my house. Before I get a chance to say anything else my mom is already on the way to the office to tell my dad of the horrible thing I did. I follow her up and there my dad is going through the mail listening to her and then he gets pissed as well. He told me to go to my room so I did. I texted the girl that watched our house and asked if she lost her sweatshirt. She did and came over to come get it. I naturally thought my parents would both not be angry anymore, but boy was I wrong. I later found my dad taking off my bedroom door. When I asked why he replied "Because you had your friends over when we were gone and they threw a party." To this day my bedroom door at home is still off.

Noone in the house was allowed to shave or have a razor at all. I could go to a barber or shave at a friend's house, but had my PC taken away when I tried at home. I still don't understand my mother's logic behind this one.

My mom was paranoid everyone and everything was a kidnapper. She hated the mailman on our route. So, when I was young, 3, 4 years old, my mom told me it was illegal to be outside when the mail came.

Around 11:15 every day I'd see that truck coming. I'd high tail it inside the house, terrified I would be spotted.

Fast forward 30 years. I still genuinely feel a tinge of panic in the smallest recesses of the back of my brain when I see the mailman arrive. Only now it's overpowered by the excitement of my latest Amazon package I really don't need.

My mom wouldn't let me open a new milk without her permission or open anything really without it. Like we would have an extra milk in the garage fridge and I would use the rest of the mil inside. Instead of a normal household where you could just get more I had to call her and ask. So that meant if she didn't pick up then I would have to wait for her to call back. The first time I realized this wasn't normal is when I friend went to open a new gallon of milk and I got super anxious and was like "dude you have to call your mom right now or she'll freak out." She was like "umm... my mom will be okay if I need a glass of milk."

I wasn't allowed to talk in the car at all unless I was directly asked a question. It didn't seem like that big of deal at the time since it was normal for me, it's now as an adult when my friends are weirded out by my immediate silence when I enter a vehicle that I realized it was not a regular rule.

Lots of things ITT are reminding me of my childhood. Here are some of the ones I dealt with:

-No chewing gum allowed

-No nail polish allowed

-No video games allowed

-Half hour of tv per day (until high school, when they got rid of it completely)

-"Download and Die" - no downloading anything on the computer, no matter how legitimate.

-No jumping on trampolines or riding 4-wheelers

-No sugar cereal. Wheaties or bust!

-On the rare occasion I got to have a sleepover, had to be home by 8 am the next day

-No sleeping in on weekends. My mom would pound on the intercom for like 10 minutes each morning and then come physically drag me out of bed if I didn't get up.

-Save 50% of each paycheck, mandatory.

Punishments were also incredibly harsh. I got caught talking to people on ICQ who I didn't know when I was 15 and wasn't allowed to use the internet until I turned 18 and moved away from home. They even revoked my school internet permission form. Once when I was 16 my mom read my diary (where I'd been saying horrible things about her), and she took it away, wrote me a 7 page letter about what a horrible human being I was, and tried to send me to live with my bio dad.